James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

CG Art

Contact

or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

Permissions

All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

How do you get reference for a cape flapping in the wind? That’s something we all have to paint from time to time.

Unless you hang out a lot in hurricanes or on airport runways wearing your cape, you just don’t get to observe the effect too often.

That was my dilemma when I needed to paint a guy riding way up high on a Brachiosaurus. I took the pose in my backyard wearing a satin gown and a red velvet cape just to get into the spirit of it.

In the movies they have those giant fans to simulate wind, but all I had was a puny window fan, and that didn’t move the cape at all. So I had my wife yank the cape back and give it a little flip right before the camera took the picture.

That helped, but I needed to see how the cape might really look with the wind filling it and pushing it back. So I made a little manikin out of chunks of wood and wire and set it on a brachiosaur model that I sculpted out of polymer clay.

I cut the cape from a small piece of red fabric and then soaked it in acrylic matte medium. I arranged it the way I wanted it, and let it dry. Matte medium is like plastic. When it dries, it holds all the folds just the way you arranged them. For the photo it's held up by little wires underneath.

You could also soak a cotton cloth in plaster, but that gets heavy and fragile. The plaster method worked well for a lot of the old masters when they painted angels. Another trick would be to put a cape on a little manikin and photograph it moving it through a fish tank. But I didn't have a fish tank.

19 comments:

My god, will this happen to me too in a decade or two ?Will I seriously consider standing on airport runways wearing a red cape ?Will I embarrass myself in front of the neighbours by sitting on the driveway in 'those' clothes blowing a horn ?Will I start to draw dinosaurs with a grin on their face, thereby making sure that National Geographic will never ever give me an assignment !?No ! I want my old job back ! Let me back into the nuclear plant ! I'll clean everything without complaining ! No I don't care my hair will fall out !My God, do you think being an illustrator will prevent that !???

Think I'm exaggerating ?Check out Paul Lassaine's site. It's one of the links in the "Animation Art" section in the left margin of this blog.Scroll far down to the pictures of the car crash. It's staged by the illustrator.Yes.One must have much respect for the wife of an illustrator. She has to explain constantly."It's for a book...""It's for a movie..."And then the neighbours will always reply in the same way. With a sad smile on their face and a soft caring tone of voice."But of course dear...we understand..."

The thin plastic vegetable bags in the grocery store work well. Since they are thinner, they make more believable folds on small mannequins/models. You can paint on them directly in oil or acrylic to adjust the color. Coupled with other references, these can really assist.

Hello Jim, Thanks for the post interesting stuff. I have a request. You know how much I am into building maquettes and such, could I see your dinosaur model that your wooden figure is on? Again thanks for the cool post

Maquettes and models are great for visual reference. Painting and drawing accuracy derived from direct observation certainly enhances the credibility of an illustration.

An audience can almost always pick up on the inconsistencies of "faking" in visual media. They might not know exactly how a cape should flutter in the breeze, but they can tell when it doesn't quite look right.

When I first saw the title, I thought this would be a post about painting landscapes out on Cape Horn or some such.

In the middle of the night it occurred to me that you might get some useful reference photos for this sort of windblown cape using a by putting on a cape, and riding a bicycle past a friend with a digital camera or video camera.